The purpose of this forum is to help people identify things they've seen while out hiking: wildflowers, trees, birds, insects, small animals, animal tracks, even geographical features like buttes or streams

What is this low, woody shrub that I see frequently mixed in with heather

I think you mean common juniper (Juniperis communis) not heather; at least that's what I see in the third picture. Regardless, both J. communis and Arctostaphylos uva-ursi are circumpolar in distribution - across N. America, western Europe, Siberia, and down to the Himalaya. J. communis has a wider distribution on the planet than any other woody plant. It was also one of the first species to establish after the ice sheets retreated at the end of the last ice age. Much more practically, its cones are used to flavor gin!

In Oregon, what's also called pinemat manzanita (Arctostaphylos nevadensis) seems to be much more common in the Cascades than A. uva-ursi. The two plants are very similar (and apparently hybridize), but A. nevadensis has pointier leaves and white, not pinkish, flowers.

Bobcat's right, the frosty-looking stuff in the last photo is juniper. And now that he mentions it, you don't frequently see bearberry and heather together... although you'll see juniper with both of them.

I was curious about A. uva-ursi vs. A. nevadensis in Oregon, so I made a couple of maps from Oregon Flora Project data:

Like bobcat said, nevadensis is all about the higher elevations; uva-ursi is all over the place, but tends to be lower and loves the coast.

Adam, poor choice of words. I probably should have used something like "problematic", "over running" or as you suggest "rampant".

Back to the shrub in question. Last night I looked at the original pictures and zoomed in trying to look at the leaf detail. Since I wasn't trying to focus on the plant, nothing was as well focused as I hoped. Long story, I could not see any sign of the pointy leaves that I saw on the descriptions of A. nevadensis. The typical manzanita red color only showed up on one plant in one picture. This certainly was in the range, at 3,900 to 4,100 feet. So guess I just going to have to go back this summer and look at it closer. Shucks, life is hard!

Kelly
There is no shortcut to anyplace worth going to.

PM me about the soon to be released:Skamania 231
"How to really get off the beaten path in Skamania County"

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